NEW YEAR’S EVE, ONE Friday, December 31, 1999, 11:55p.m. (Henry is 36, Clare is 28)

NEW YEAR’S EVE, ONE


Friday, December 31, 1999, 11:55p.m. (Henry is 36, Clare is 28)

HENRY: Clare and I are standing on a rooftop in Wicker Park with a multitude of
other hardy souls, awaiting the turn of the so-called millennium. It’s a clear night, and
not that cold; I can see my breath, and my ears and nose are a bit numb. Clare is all
muffled up in her big black scarf and her face is startlingly white in the moon/street
light. The rooftop belongs to a couple of Clare’s artist friends. Gomez and Charisse
are nearby, slow-dancing in parkas and mittens to music only they can hear. Everyone
around us is drunkenly bantering about the canned goods they nave stockpiled, the
heroic measures they have taken to protect their computers from meltdown. I smile to
myself, knowing that all this millennial nonsense will be completely forgotten by the
time the Christmas trees are Picked up off the curbs by Streets and San.

We are waiting for the fireworks to begin. Clare and I lean against the waist-high
false front of the building and survey the City of Chicago. We are facing east, looking
toward Lake Michigan. “Hello, everybody” Clare says, waving her mitten at the lake,
at South Haven, Michigan. “It’s funny,”

she says to me. “It’s already the new year there. I’m sure they’re all in bed.” We
are six stories up, and I am surprised by how much I can see from here. Our house, in
Lincoln Square, is somewhere to the north and west of here; our neighborhood is
quiet and dark. Downtown, to the southeast, is sparkling. Some of the huge buildings
are decorated for Christmas, sporting green and red lights in their windows. The Sears
and The Hancock stare at each other like giant robots over the heads of lesser
skyscrapers. I can almost see the building I lived in when I met Clare, on North
Dearborn, but it’s obscured by the taller, uglier building they put up a few years ago
next to it. Chicago has so much excellent architecture that they feel obliged to tear
some of it down now and then and erect terrible buildings just to help us all
appreciate the good stuff. There isn’t much traffic; everyone wants to be somewhere
at midnight, not on the road. I can hear bursts of firecrackers here and there,
punctuated occasionally with gunfire from the morons who seem to forget that guns
do more than make loud noises. Clare says, “I’m freezing” and looks at her watch.


“Two more minutes.” Bursts of celebration around the neighborhood indicate that
some people’s watches are fast.

I think about Chicago in the next century. More people, many more. Ridiculous
traffic, but fewer potholes. There will be a hideous building that looks like an
exploding Coke can in Grant Park; the West Side will slowly rise out of poverty and
the South Side will continue to decay. They will finally tear down Wrigley Field and
build an ugly megastadium, but for now it stands blazing with light in the Northeast.

Gomez begins the countdown: “Ten, nine, eight...” and we all take it up: “seven,
six, five, four, THREE! TWO! ONE! Happy New Year!” Champagne corks pop,
fireworks ignite and streak across the sky, and Clare and I dive into each other’s arms.
Time stands still, and I hope for better things to come.